#TeamCap, #TeamStark and Donald Trump
“The more that people like [Trump] spout off .. characters like Captain America become more important.” That’s from Captain America: Civil War screenwriter Christopher Markus. “It’s important to have someone remind people that that is not what this country is about, and you’re being kind of an ugly fool, and reductive.
Bernie Sanders is #TeamCap. The Donald is his new nemesis Tony Stark, the megalomaniacal narcissistic billionaire who doesn’t play well with others.
Except they’re not. Salon of all places gets this right. #TeamStark “agree to sign a document that grants command-and-control authority over the Avengers to a special United Nations committee.” Captain America “pretty much the corporeal embodiment of American superpower hegemony — is having none of it. He doesn’t come right out and say that he’s all about making America great again, and that only a bunch of losers would sign an agreement written by a bunch of Third World socialist weirdos with unpronounceable names. But that’s sure how it looks.” What defines the Captain is not his aw-shucks 50s politeness shtick. It’s that he refuses to be part of the blob. He insists on excellence, freedom, and independence. He will not place himself under the control of international governments. “It’s run by people with agendas and agendas change.” “We may not be perfect but the safest hands are still our own.” What defines The Donald isn’t all the rude, fascist, unstable and deranged war criminal wannabe stuff. OK, maybe it is. But that’s not all there is. All around us people ignore Americans’ (and Jews’) contributions, blame them for all the world’s problems, and insist we put them under the control of a world body of mostly unelected dictators. All around us people insist white men check their privilege and recognize how evil 1950s America was. On these central issues, of the movie and of the election, the gentleman and the lout stand as one. Vox is, well, Vox. “There’s no way anyone would want superheroes, some of whom could level an entire city in an afternoon, running around without being subject to any laws.” Vox doesn’t even know Team Captain exists in the real world. Just replace “superheroes” with “superpowers.” Realize that “subject to any laws” really means “subject to the tyranny of a corrupt international body.” Anybody else notice that the UN Human Rights Council is headed by Saudi Arabia and that it spends most of its time condemning Israel? The goody-two-shoes part is the Captain’s gimmick, not his essence. We’ll spend the next few months arguing whether or not the same is true of The Donald’s trollishness. The squeaky clean Captain and the nasty man from Queens have many differences. But on today’s biggest issues, they have same appeal, and are on the same side.
